Mobile telephones have become widely used in recent years, and it is often the case that when people try to reach someone, a call is made to his/her mobile telephone no matter whether the reason of the call is a business or personal purpose.
This is because a call is made directly to the telephone carried by the person whom one wants to contact, and it is therefore guaranteed to reach the person no matter where he/she is. Additionally, even in the case if the person cannot answer a call right away, it is possible to make direct contact with the person by sending message by mail.
However, because of its portability, we may forget to take a mobile telephone with us—for example, in the case of coming to the office leaving the mobile telephone at home.
There is a technology for, in such a case, allowing the owner of the mobile telephone left behind to instruct the mobile telephone from remote location to change its answering message. This technology is designed so that after the mobile telephone left behind receives a predetermined mail from its owner, it sends back to a caller of an incoming call or a mail sender a reply indicating that the mobile telephone has been left behind (see Patent Reference 1).
The technology provides an advantage of hearing from the caller or mail sender again because the mail informing of the mobile telephone being left behind is replied to the person.
<Patent Reference 1> Japanese Laid-open Patent Application Publication No. 2004-260416